Time Zone under location services was the issue on mine. My battery was getting shredded randomly. I manually changed the location services icon to 'ON' so I could watch for when it happened.... sure enough it was location services raping my batt. I drilled down to figure out which service it was and it was Time Zone. It was just drilling away on the GPS and not giving up. Phone was even quite warm to the touch etc. Anyway, turned off Time Zone and rebooted the phone for good measure. I've been 100% problem free for 4 days now..... battery performance = phenomenal now.... I would say even better than my iPhone 4 was.
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Apple Working with iPhone 4S Owners to Address Battery Life Issues
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GMail was my problem... probably
My 4S was lasting only a day without making any calls. At some points, it was losing about a percent every 2 minutes. It also got hot while using it without it being plugged in.
On the advice of a friend, I deleted my Gmail account -- in the phone -- which was using Exchange for push. I recreated it as a plain Gmail account. At first, it was still having problems, but after resetting it, I've had really great results.
That was a few days ago, and it's still looking good. For instance, I charged it about 4 hours ago and it's still reading 100%, which would not have been the case before.
My 4S was lasting only a day without making any calls. At some points, it was losing about a percent every 2 minutes. It also got hot while using it without it being plugged in.
On the advice of a friend, I deleted my Gmail account -- in the phone -- which was using Exchange for push. I recreated it as a plain Gmail account. At first, it was still having problems, but after resetting it, I've had really great results.
That was a few days ago, and it's still looking good. For instance, I charged it about 4 hours ago and it's still reading 100%, which would not have been the case before.
Seems like the same stuff gets mentioned in here repeatedly: Time Zone, iCloud, etc. I pulled my spiffy brand-new Verizon 4S from its charger today at 1 PM local time. It's now a little past 10 PM. I have Time Zone off, iCloud off, wifi off, Bluetooth on. I'm at 94% battery life. Seems reasonable to me.
It's probably too late if you've made a commitment to iCloud (Mobile Me, .mac, whatever), and are already wedded to that whole ecosystem. For me, I've always been a user of Google apps for this kind of stuff--works just as well, and is less platform-specific. I use a Google Calendar app for my iPhone/iPad, and I have my own sorta hacked-up pseudo-push system implemented by having Growl running on my always-on Mac, and the "Howl" plug-in installed as well, thus forwarding notifications to all my iOS devices. A little more work to manage perhaps, but as I see all the horror stories on here, I like my setup better.
I recommend my setup to anybody who is just jumping into the iPhone world for the first time.
It's probably too late if you've made a commitment to iCloud (Mobile Me, .mac, whatever), and are already wedded to that whole ecosystem. For me, I've always been a user of Google apps for this kind of stuff--works just as well, and is less platform-specific. I use a Google Calendar app for my iPhone/iPad, and I have my own sorta hacked-up pseudo-push system implemented by having Growl running on my always-on Mac, and the "Howl" plug-in installed as well, thus forwarding notifications to all my iOS devices. A little more work to manage perhaps, but as I see all the horror stories on here, I like my setup better.
I recommend my setup to anybody who is just jumping into the iPhone world for the first time.
Assault and Battery...
If your
phone is hot and the battery drains... DISABLE FLASH!!!
OH!, wait, um, never mind,
Still rockin' the originalphone 4S en route...
http://batteryuniversity.com/
If your
phone is hot and the battery drains... DISABLE FLASH!!!OH!, wait, um, never mind,
Still rockin' the original
phone 4S en route...http://batteryuniversity.com/
I have friends & employees that are experiencing quite a bit of battery drain because of iCloud. Then there are others that do not. The range of variables seems unpredictable.
It will be interesting to see if Apple responds.
For all you guys that say that location services are affecting your battery.
When you go to the list of apps that have location services does it show a little grey arrow signifying that the app used the location service?
I only ask because I check frequently to see which apps have accessed the service but I never see any that have unless I specifically used that app. Furthermore if I did use an app that did use the service, if I check more than 24 hours later none of those apps used location services again.
I'm just curious if you guys think that the apps are using location services and not showing they did. Aside from that is there some other reason you think it is location services that's eating your battery life?
Thanks
When you go to the list of apps that have location services does it show a little grey arrow signifying that the app used the location service?
I only ask because I check frequently to see which apps have accessed the service but I never see any that have unless I specifically used that app. Furthermore if I did use an app that did use the service, if I check more than 24 hours later none of those apps used location services again.
I'm just curious if you guys think that the apps are using location services and not showing they did. Aside from that is there some other reason you think it is location services that's eating your battery life?
Thanks
I'm confident Apple will address these battery issues. I have to say that my 4S has been slightly disappointing in this regard. I understand that active processes would demand greater power consumption, but the rate at which battery life declines at standby is truly terrible. Overnight (7hours) a fully charged phone loses 6% of life, with wifi/bluetooth/location services/push email all turned off. I keep the backlight at less than 1/4, and am performing very light usage throughout the day. Regardless of how careful I am, I still find myself needing to charge it almost every day. My iPhone 4 and iPad 2 are the complete opposite, I can use them moderately throughout the day and not have to charge them for days at a time. I really hope Apple addresses this soon, I'm thinking about going back to the 4.
I've noticed what I would say to be a battery level calibration issue with my wife's new 4S. After showing about 5hrs of usage today with 16hrs standby, it was down to about 6%. That 6% went down to 1% in about 15min of continuous use (some app updates, a few webpage loads). From that point, I started streaming a video from iTunes over WIFI and was able to watch 25min of the video at 1% battery until it died. That's a heck of a lot of "1%" battery.
This is also the first time it's been completely drained since Oct15th. Perhaps it will show a better battery level after a full charge from completely dead.
This is also the first time it's been completely drained since Oct15th. Perhaps it will show a better battery level after a full charge from completely dead.
It definitely has something to do with "usage". I my wife and I have 'nearly' identical 4s' (hers-16Gb, mine-32Gb). I unplug both from recharging simultaneously and when I look at usage, my standby and usage times only differ by a few minutes and her usage is only a few minutes out of several hours of standby time. She has no problem with battery drain, obviously.
I tried the "delete mail, turn off setting time zone, reboot and restart mail and time zone" thing. I'll report if it helps. (It's kind of interesting since I haven't been out of the timezone for a few days, but the 24-hour gray arrow is present.)
Thanks,
I tried the "delete mail, turn off setting time zone, reboot and restart mail and time zone" thing. I'll report if it helps. (It's kind of interesting since I haven't been out of the timezone for a few days, but the 24-hour gray arrow is present.)
Thanks,
Battery problem for sure
Ok so im not crazy, their actually is a battery problem. I remember when i had the iphone 4 i put beta iOS5 on it and enabled iCloud, my abttery drained so quick i thought i was using android. lol.
Well now i got the iPhone 4s an don't have iCloud setup because i need the battery life to be good, but it still runs out quick! Normally without iCloud on my iphone 4 would never have to charge my iPhone at all, lasted me from 9am to 11pm easily. The 4S without iCloud drops to 40% at about 5pm!!!
Something is wrong for sure. Cant wait until they fix it! Knowing apple it'll be soon!
Ok so im not crazy, their actually is a battery problem. I remember when i had the iphone 4 i put beta iOS5 on it and enabled iCloud, my abttery drained so quick i thought i was using android. lol.
Well now i got the iPhone 4s an don't have iCloud setup because i need the battery life to be good, but it still runs out quick! Normally without iCloud on my iphone 4 would never have to charge my iPhone at all, lasted me from 9am to 11pm easily. The 4S without iCloud drops to 40% at about 5pm!!!
Something is wrong for sure. Cant wait until they fix it! Knowing apple it'll be soon!
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I'm happy they are at least calling customers and trying hard to fix this.
I hated how for my Galaxy S, Samsung basically gave up trying to fix the GPS. Heck, to them I already bought the phone, hence no incentive to put any more $$ towards R&D, and I guess a broken phone is a good incentive to get a Galaxy S II or an Infuse.
Following up on customer complaints is why Apple is still doing so well
I'm happy they are at least calling customers and trying hard to fix this.
I hated how for my Galaxy S, Samsung basically gave up trying to fix the GPS. Heck, to them I already bought the phone, hence no incentive to put any more $$ towards R&D, and I guess a broken phone is a good incentive to get a Galaxy S II or an Infuse.
Following up on customer complaints is why Apple is still doing so well
According to mine that feature hasn't used my location in the past 24 hours, so there's clearly some variation. I haven't been seeing serious battery life issues, though it's definitely not great.
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Guys... Maybe without Steve Jobs the iPhone will slowly become more and more like an Android... Starting with terrible battery life
Who knows, maybe in iOS 6 we can get an extra 1000000 buttons for features we'll never use
Guys... Maybe without Steve Jobs the iPhone will slowly become more and more like an Android... Starting with terrible battery life
Who knows, maybe in iOS 6 we can get an extra 1000000 buttons for features we'll never use
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Hahhaha so true
maconservative said:
Hahhaha so true
For some reason the first week after I bought my 4s the batter died really fast. Now it seems to last as long as iPhone batteries always have.
I just remebered something !
Apple always does this with new iPhones !
They release a "defective" product
The Jailbreakers release their exploit
and one day later........
Apple MAGICALLY has a Fix and a new update to "Fix" the problem leaving all jailbreakers up Poop creek with out an Update
Its so obvious, they do it every year
Duhhh !!!
Apple always does this with new iPhones !
They release a "defective" product
The Jailbreakers release their exploit
and one day later........
Apple MAGICALLY has a Fix and a new update to "Fix"
the problem leaving all jailbreakers up Poop creek with out an Update Its so obvious, they do it every year
Duhhh !!!
I did deep cycles on my new 4s (draining battery till dead and charging with the phone off) every day for a week and my battery life improved noticeably without turning off any services. For example, without turning anything off, I am at 40% now after midnight and the first few days I couldn't make it past midnight without the phone shutting down. Remember that after a dead phone is plugged in a few minutes, it starts itself up and you have to shut it down. My battery life is now tolerable. I upgraded from a 4 with ios5 and the battery life drop was huge.
Yup, you basically calibrated your battery meter by doing that. However, don't do that too often, as lithium-ion batteries don't like deep cycles. IIRC, Apple recommends this once a month to keep the battery meter calibrated, but please don't do it too often, or you may shorten the overall battery lifetime (e.g., how many years/months before the battery needs to be replaced).
I actually noticed that, since the first day, my battery life is a whole lot better if i keep wifi on. for some reason, if i have only the 3g enabled, the phone lasts slightly less than a day without using it much. with wifi on all the time, it lasts around a day and 2/3's or so
That probably makes sense, if your 3G signal is low, and if you are in an area where your phone can connect to a wifi access point to get to the outside world.
If you're not in airplane mode, the iPhone periodically talks to various services (e.g., email, location services, various other services used by apps, etc., etc.). If wifi is turned off, the phone is forced to communicate via 3G and, the lower the 3G signal, the more power it takes. However, if wifi is turned on, the phone can communicate via wifi, which may take less power than communicating via low-signal 3G.
You could also have had the "corrupt contacts killing the battery" problem. By accessing gmail via the crippled gmail account method, the iphone doesn't have access to gmail contacts (unlike google sync).
I had problems with my battery life on the iPhone 4 as well (I did take part in the official beta testing of iOS5) - my solution was rather simple...
I did a 100% clean install of iOS5 - no backup restored - just a pure clean install.
After that I had back the battery life I was used to with the 4.x releases.
Now this won't help iPhone 4S users, since there was never a backup from a 4.x release - but it might solve the issue for some people with a iPhone 4 and that did an update/upgrade to iOS5 and restoring settings.
Oh and of course if you use reminders with location info - you shouldn't wonder about drainage of the battery...
I did a 100% clean install of iOS5 - no backup restored - just a pure clean install.
After that I had back the battery life I was used to with the 4.x releases.
Now this won't help iPhone 4S users, since there was never a backup from a 4.x release - but it might solve the issue for some people with a iPhone 4 and that did an update/upgrade to iOS5 and restoring settings.
Oh and of course if you use reminders with location info - you shouldn't wonder about drainage of the battery...
